Smurfit Westrock will close a corrugated products plant in Portland, Oregon, and lay off employees, according to a worker adjustment and retraining notification filed with the state this week.
Because the permanent shutdown process is expected to exceed 60 days, employees will be let go in phases, said Robby Johnson, Smurfit Westrock director of external communications for North America, via email. The first phase is scheduled for June, according to the WARN, and 72 employees will be affected in that round.
Some of these employees are represented by a union, and any bumping rights will be governed by provisions in the collective bargaining agreement, according to the WARN. Non-bargaining unit employees will not have bumping rights.
Eligible employees can apply for other open positions in the company’s network, Johnson said. The Portland plant’s production capacity will shift to other Smurfit Westrock facilities, he said. The company has multiple other facilities in the region, including a recycling plant in Portland, a paper mill in Longview, Washington, and other sites farther north in Washington.
This facility will close due to Smurfit Westrock’s regional optimization efforts, Johnson said. Since the company formed in July 2024 from the combination of Smurfit Kappa and Westrock, executives have noted on several occasions that they were evaluating legacy business segments for potential streamlining, especially the solid bleached sulfate paperboard business. Certain box plants either need to be made more efficient or taken offline, CEO Tony Smurfit explained during an earnings call last July.
In October 2024, he mentioned on an earnings call that Smurfit Westrock had recently eliminated 800 positions amid other cost-cutting measures. Smurfit gave an update on the February earnings call, saying more than 1,000 people had already left or soon would to align with streamlining efforts. And Smurfit Westrock announced earlier this year that it would close a container plant in Bridgeview, Illinois, also as part of footprint optimization, with layoffs to begin in March.
